JPL Mars Science Laboratory
Entry, descent, and landing sequence; Mars in 2012; NASA's JPL trailblazers.
-Missing Piece Inspires New Look at Mars Puzzle
September 3, 2010
Experiments prompted by a 2008 surprise from NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander suggest that soil examined by NASA's Viking Mars landers in 1976 may have contained carbon-based chemical building blocks of life. [read]
-History-Making Mars Mission Launched 35 Years Ago:
August 20, 2010
NASA's Viking 1 mission, launched on Aug. 20, 1975, put a spacecraft into orbit around Mars, delivered the first successful lander to the Martian surface. View first photo. [here]
Other News...
-Two Asteroids to Pass by Earth Wednesday: Observable near closest approach to Earth with moderate-sized amateur telescopes; and neither objects have a chance of hitting Earth. [read]
Duped as a cosmic coincidence; Spaceweather shows these Ephemeris [here] and [here]; as they cross inside the orbit of the moon; they'll shine like stars of 15th or 16th magnitude.
Near Earth asteroid [2010 RX30] is estimated to be 10 to 20 meters in size and will pass within 0.6 lunar distances of Earth (about 248,000 km) at 9:51 Greenwich standard time (5:51 am EDT) Wednesday. The second object, [2010 RF12], estimated to be 6 to 14 meters in size will pass within 0.2 lunar distances (79,000 km) a few hours later at 21:12 Greenwich standard time (5:12 pm EDT).
-VIDEO: WISE Scans for Asteroids and Comets: [view]
NEOWISE principal investigator Amy Mainzer describes the ongoing tally of space rocks and comets... JPL's Orbit computation can predict asteroid’s entry, and fragmentation in earth atmosphere probabilities.
And here's something more worrisome than an Asteroid threat:
-Democrat 111th Congress Proposes Commission to Study Asteroid threat Impact: [read]. What's next; a "man-caused" Asteroid Tax?
:D (haha)
VIDEO: Spaceguard Survey: [view]
From Video: "Everyone knows that eight planets orbit the Sun. But thousands of other objects, including icy comets and football field-sized asteroids, are also zooming around our solar system. And some of them could be on a collision course with Earth."
-Yep.... A hefty tax...
Small Near-Earth Object Probably Rocket Part: #Scientists have determined that a small object that safely passed Earth on May 21 is more than likely an upper-stage of a rocket. [read]
